Friday, October 3, 2014

#Wolf Weekly Wrap Up by #Defenders of Wildlife

03 October 2014

Posted by: Melanie Gade

Wyoming Wolves Back Under Federal Protection: Last week we told you of our wonderful victory in Wyoming when a federal judge reinstated federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for gray wolves
in the state! The state of Wyoming wasn’t too keen on relinquishing
control of their wolf management, so in response, this week, the state
immediately passed an emergency rule attempting to rectify a component
of its management plan. The state hoped this quick fix would appease the
judge enough to return wolf management to the state…just in time for
hunting season, which was slated to start on October 1.

Thankfully, the
Judge said no and reasserted that her previous ruling required Wyoming
to go back and revise its management plan. In denying Wyoming’s and the
federal government’s requests to amend her ruling and reinstate the
delisting rule, the Judge said: “I sent you back to the drawing board.
It’s great that you started to sketch, but you are not done, and it is
too early to ask me to look at it again.” Clearly the battle for wolves
is far from over, but for now, Wyoming wolves have a reprieve.

Some Much Needed Funding for Nonlethal Wolf Management! Last Friday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
(the Service) announced it would provide $900,000 in grants to
livestock producers in the states of Arizona, Idaho, Michigan,
Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin and
Wyoming who are willing to implement non-lethal deterrents to keep livestock away from wolves.

The program is funded through the Wolf Livestock Demonstration Project Grant Program
which has authorized the Service to administer grants annually for five
years. The program helps fund compensation to ranchers for loss of
livestock due to depredation and non-lethal programs by providing up to a
50 percent cost-share for purchasing non-lethal tools, and also
compensates producers for livestock losses caused by wolves. This is
exactly the type of support we need to get nonlethal programs in wider
use by livestock owners and ranchers who frequently rely on lethal
control to address livestock-wolf conflict. We hope to see Congress
continue this grant funding program because it directly benefits
livestock producers willing to take proactive action to protect wolves.

We Must Stop a Proposed Predator Derby Set for January In Idaho: A few weeks ago we learned that a hunters’ rights group called Idaho for Wildlife requested permission from the Bureau of Land Management
(BLM) to hold a multi-day predator killing contest starting in January
2015 on wide expanses of national public lands around Salmon, Idaho.
Even though 60,000 Defenders members have already asked BLM to stop this
proposal, it looks like BLM is seriously considering allowing it. But,
now we have another chance to tell BLM why they cannot proceed. Events
like these are the same kinds of extermination-era tactics that drove
wolves to the brink of extinction in the Lower 48 in the first place.
This is not modern wildlife management and it has no place in our
society. Please take just a moment to submit your comment to BLM, and in doing so, take a stand for wolves, coyotes and other predators and wildlife in Idaho!

The film offers an abbreviated history of the relationship between wolves and people—told from the wolf’s perspective—from a time when they coexisted to an era in which people began to fear and exterminate the wolves.

The return of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains has been called one of America’s greatest conservation stories. But wolves are facing new attacks by members of Congress who are gunning to remove Endangered Species Act protections before the species has recovered.

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Inescapably, the realization was being borne in upon my preconditioned mind that the centuries-old and universally accepted human concept of wolf character was a palpable lie... From this hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were.

-Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

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“If you look into the eyes of a wild wolf, there is something there more powerful than many humans can accept.” – Suzanne Stone